I don't like Rudy Giuliani for president. I don't like his stance on abortion (I am vehemently pro-life). But this sucks, okay?
Relatives of firefighters killed at the World Trade Center in 2001 reproached Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani in a video Wednesday, pairing footage of the falling twin towers with charges that the city's former mayor was woefully unprepared for Sept. 11, causing needless firefighter deaths.
No one . . . NO ONE knew what kind of impact 9/11 would have that day. No one expected airliners flying into the WTC, much less BOTH towers collapsing. New York is a massive city - although the action was happening at the tip of Manhattan, the mayor had to be concerned about the entire city, whether it be panicked reactions, looting, or whatever. I grew up in NYC - I KNOW.
Oh yeah, this video attacking Giuliani comes courtesy of the International Association of Firefighters, who oppose Giuliani's candidacy.
Fire union officials and family members, repeating claims they had made for months, charged Giuliani pushed for a faster cleanup of ground zero at the expense of finding remains, put an emergency center in a building that collapsed on Sept. 11 and failed to provide working radios for firefighters, making it impossible for them to learn the towers were on the verge of collapse.
"Virtually the whole thing goes back to him with the radios," Jim Riches, a deputy fire chief whose son was killed on Sept. 11, says in the video. "He's the guy on the top, and he's the guy you yell at. He takes the hit. And my son is dead because of it."
Really, Mr. Riches? Why don't you yell at al-Qaeda - your son is dead because of them. But you expect Giuliani to have kept your son alive by masterfully handling the distribution of radios?
I was here in California on 9/11 but I kept in constant touch with friends and family back in New York. It was chaos, it was shock, it was something no one expected to happen, much less live through. On that day, Giuliani did the best he could . . . and to many New Yorkers, including myself, he did us f**king proud.
Former New York firefighter Lee Ielpi, whose son died on Sept. 11, and former Office of Emergency Management Commissioner Richard Sheirer appeared at a news conference with McKeon, calling the video a "disgrace" and saying it is full of "half-truths."
Ielpi disputed claims made in the tape that workers searching for remains were pulled from the rubble, arguing that Giuliani allowed some workers to return. Similarly, Sheirer said it wasn't the radios that didn't work but rather a high-rise signal transmission system that didn't work in one of the towers but worked "perfectly" in the other tower, until it crashed to the ground.
"I was there. I saw it. I experienced it," said Ielpi, who worked at ground zero for the nine-month cleanup. "I'm not going to let lies like this go."
8 comments:
It's true that people get blind after a tragedy and have a tendency to misdirect their anger.
I spilled coffee on my crotch, so instead of being humiliated and retreating to a corner, walking a bit oddly, I sued McDonald's.
Stupid.
But it really IS true that the equipment which the FDNY was working with on 9/11 was archaic, and was not brought into the 21st century because state-of-the-art radios were cost-prohibitive.
The fact that those people were working with outdated crap less advanced than, say, the Kansas City Fire Department's stuff, is inexcusable.
Now...
They KNEW they had crap.
The citizens KNEW the FD needed funding.
It's not like Rudy vetoed the "New Radios Bill."
Al Qaeda brought down those buildings, but many men were lost because their radios were shit, pardon the French.
We have a duty to outfit our men (especially, for God's sake, the men in the BIGGEST CITY in the U.S., who we KNEW needed the best of the best) with stuff that works.
The Chicago Fire Department has JUST RECENTLY gotten 'bunker pants', the yellow baggy pants part of the firefighters' uniform. Prior to a couple years ago, they were wearing non fire-retardant crap.
To fires.
It's a big problem - we fund public art (which I enjoy), public parks (which I enjoy), public schools (which I do not enjoy), and public festivals (which I enjoy), but we can't fund public servants. And I enjoy the live variety of those most of all.
;)
Nope, Rudy's not fully responsible for the FDNY using garbage prior to 9/11, but he bears some responsibility, just like Mayor Daley does here.
But not much more than I, Jane Q. Citizen, bear, in the end.
Good post.
Interesting. The allegations I'd heard about Giuliani and the firefighters were that he postured a lot about recovering remains, then closed up shop on recovery as soon as the gold bullion from a particular company's vault was recovered. (Again, this came from the firefighters' union.) However, I didn't take much time to evaluate the fairness or accuracy of the allegations, because like you, I don't like Giuliani for President anyway. Why pick apart the attacks on him when I've got a much stronger, more rational, and largely undisputed reason to not vote for him?
(Well, perhaps so I can more effectively argue against him to other prospective voters...but anyway.)
I'm sorry, but crap like this feeds into stuff like Rosie O'Donnell questioning how steel can melt, so it must have been the government who burned down WTC 7.
Ma, good point, but then, it is doubtful that even state of the art equipment would have helped in a catclysm of this magnitude. Two 106-story towers collpased within minutes of each other during an evacuation of literally thousands of people, and even then, not too long after being hit by planes. I question what good a brand new radio would have done in the stairwell on the 78th floor.
Point blame after al-Qaeda? Port Authority, who owns the buildings, were slow in ordering immediate evacuation - people were confused and scared and in situations like that, many have to be told what to do.
Heros other than the firefighters, cops, and EMTs? God bless the 911 dispatchers who, realizing that there was nothing they could do, at least stayed on the phones with the victims, giving them some support in their final moments.
9/11 is a very, very sore subject for me. Even now I still cry when I think of that day.
Kasia -
I just realized, with following your post - I meant crap like this video, not your comment! ;-)
LOL - thanks for the clarification. ;-)
Digi,
Please pray for the baby whose mother has an abortion scheduled for tomorrow.
Thanks in advance.
Ma,
Absolutely. And for the mother as well. Why is she doing it?
Digi,
She is overwhelmed.
She is a single mother of a 4 year old son and a 6 month old daughter.
The father is worthless.
She suffers from depression, and abortion is quite accepted in her family, as her sister has had 3 already.
She has "goals", she says, and frankly, doesn't want to be inconvenienced for the next 7 months.
Simply put, she is completely devoid of hope.
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